


A Simple Night

by thrace



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2442902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrace/pseuds/thrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura, Danny, and a formal dance.  If you think this is an excuse to imagine Danny Lawrence in a tuxedo you are completely, utterly correct.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Simple Night

“What do you think about formal dances?” Laura blurts out one night over pie. (Good old fashioned apple, made from fruit harvested locally by a farmer who’s been providing produce to the school for over a hundred years. Well, his family, not him personally. Probably.)

Danny looks up from her fork, bit of pie still balanced on the tip. “They can be fun. The Summer Society formal is great.”

“When is it?” Laura asks.

“End of the year, when it’s warm enough to be outside.”

“Oh.”

Danny keeps eating and Laura keeps watching her, words all jamming up in a backlog against her teeth. “Whatdoyouthinkabouttheautumnformal?” she blurts out finally.

Danny blinks, trying to unscramble the shotgun blast of words Laura just sprayed at her. “The Nox Ball? The one this weekend?”

Laura nods. Ever since the posters went up around campus and everyone got an e-mail from the student council that tickets were on sale, it’s been nagging the back of her brain like a catchy song that just won’t die. Of course she’s horribly busy with schoolwork and there’s a kind of worrisome level of mystery in her life but she hasn’t really taken a break since—well, since Betty last dragged her out to that party. God, Betty. Betty would be all over this formal dance. She slumps in her seat, suddenly too guilty to think about dances anymore. “Never mind.”

“No, wait.” Danny puts down her fork, hand sliding close to Laura’s on the table to nudge her finger. “What’s up?”

“I was just…kind of excited thinking about the dance and then I remembered Betty would probably love to go too.” Laura’s chin lands in her palm and she stares at the remnants of their pie, her other hand toying with her fork.

Danny stares at her for a long moment. “Laura,” she says slowly, and it’s one of the few times Laura’s heard her sound anything less than completely self-assured. “Do you want to go to the formal?”

“I mean yes, but I don’t know if I should now because it feels so wrong without Betty but she’d want me to go and actually we might be able to observe—”

Danny’s hand finally lands on hers, cutting her off. “With me. Do you want to go to the formal with me.”

Laura looks to their touching hands, then up into those big serious blue eyes. She wants to giggle at how seriously Danny is asking her. She smiles instead, letting it break through the guilt and worry like a ray of sunshine. “Yes. Absolutely yes.”

Danny’s face transforms too—to something kind of dopey, actually, which is impossibly cute on someone normally so authoritative. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“Don’t be late,” says Laura, then groans internally at the inadvertent rhyme. She eats a big scoop of pie with whipped cream to cover it up, coughs on it, and the pie break ends with Danny pounding on her back to help dislodge a chunk of Styrian Green Crisp apple from her windpipe.

*

She gets more and more excited and a little bit nervous as the week counts down. She already has a cute dress which saves her the anxiety (and money) of shopping for one, which in turn lets her put her head down and really grind out her schoolwork until Saturday afternoon, when she finally starts getting ready. Carmilla wakes up from her daytime torpor as Laura walks out of the bathroom in a robe with her hair in curlers, just to try to give it some wave near the bottom. 

“You look like a mentally unbalanced barrister,” she intones.

“I’m going to the formal tonight,” Laura says, determined not to let anything get her down. It’s going to be a magical night and not even her roommate’s mockery can make a dent in her upbeat mood.

Carmilla makes a barely discernable _hmph_ sound and buries her nose in a well-worn book she pulls down from the shelf.

Laura just keeps getting ready, watching the clock like a hawk, and trying not to stress-eat more cookies because there’ll be cookies at the dance. Hair, makeup, dress, shoes, no not those shoes, other shoes, okay maybe original shoes, and then it’s nearly eight and Carmilla is slinking out of the room with her bulging rucksack over one shoulder. She pauses in the door, eyes scanning Laura in a slightly unsettling way. “You don’t look half bad,” she says, and then she’s gone, the flyers on the activities board in the hallway rustling in her wake.

Laura has about five seconds to digest that yes, Carmilla (kind of) complimented her because Danny is knocking on her door. In a full on tuxedo. With flowers in hand.

Laura looks at her, to the flowers, to her, and blurts out, “Oh my god I’m not ready yet _wait outside please_.” She darts into the bathroom without waiting to see if Danny complies, checks herself one last time in the full-length mirror, dabs at an errant bit of eyeliner, and then peeks out into her room. She can see the edge of the bouquet Danny brought in the doorway, where Danny is leaning. “Hi,” she says.

Danny pokes her head around the edge of the door too, and they grin at each other like that, heads sticking out in tandem. “Hi,” says Danny.

Laura emerges fully and so does Danny and they both get a proper look at the other. Danny stops fully in the doorway. “Wow.”

Laura blushes, pushing her hair behind her ear. Most of it is gathered up at the nape of her neck and draped over her left shoulder; the waves came out pretty well, if she does say so herself. Danny’s hair is slightly quiffed at the front, pulled back into an elegant bun. It’s so different from her usual freeflowing mane or simple ponytail; Laura likes it quite a lot. And the tux too, it’s not bad, all slim tailored lines and perfect bowtie. Next to Laura’s white chiffon floor-length gown they’re going to look pretty striking. “You look wow too,” she offers.

Seconds tick past while they hold eye contact, until Laura takes a breath. “Are those for me?” She points at the flowers.

Danny seems to remember she’s holding them. “Oh, yeah. Here.” She proffers them, a bunch of crocuses tied with a white bow. “They reminded me of you.”

Shyly, Laura takes them, their fingers brushing. “Thanks.” She smells them, then looks around her room trying to find something vaguely vase-shaped that will hold water. The best option at hand is her TARDIS mug; she tosses the remnants of hot chocolate down the bathroom sink, rinses it, and fills it with fresh water. The mug goes on her desk right next to computer and then she turns around to see Danny looking pleased at its placement. 

“Ready?” Danny asks, offering her elbow.

Laura’s hand slides neatly into the crook. In her heels she’s…still craning her head to look up at Danny, but at least it’s not an actual whole foot of difference between them. On their way out they pass Perry’s room and LaFontaine spots them through the open door. They give Laura a huge, exaggerated thumbs up which Danny thankfully does not see.

They catch a cab to the hotel downtown where the dance is being held. Danny takes her hand helping her out of the car and doesn’t let go all the way into the ballroom. Laura hopes she doesn’t start sweating; clammy hands are not conducive to anything ever. Danny’s hand is nice, big and warm and calloused in spots from archery and javelin practice. Laura likes watching Danny at javelin practice, the way she lopes up to the line, the sudden surge of power as she throws, the furrow of concentration while she watches the javelin’s arc. At first Laura wondered why they used actual dummies as targets instead of just throwing for distance but she quickly learned not to ask questions about Summer Society athletics.

She spots a few people from class and they stop and chat to some of the Summer Society women, but eventually they reach the dance floor. “Cookies first or cookies later?” Danny asks, eyes practically twinkling at her.

“Ha ha,” says Laura, but she still looks around to get the refreshments table’s location fixed in her mind. 

At first the dancing is fun. The DJ isn’t professional, just one of the Dionysia Club girls, but she has lots of songs with good rhythm queued up to keep the energy high. Danny’s hair has a few tendrils coming loose after half an hour and Laura is just starting to feel like she needs a glass of water, which is when the DJ transitions them into a slow song. 

There’s no reason it should suddenly get awkward but it does. They stop moving, about a foot of space between them, and then Laura grabs Danny’s hands to place one on her shoulder and hold the other with their palms locked. Laura’s free hand goes to Danny’s waist and starts guiding her around in a vague kind of waltz that’s more swaying than anything. But then Danny pulls her closer and in her heels she’s just tall enough to rest her head against Danny’s shoulder and the word fades for a few minutes. No disappearing girls, no annoying roommates, no dean threatening her. Just a girl on a date (no one said the word “date” but it has got to be a date by now, _right?_ ) having a dance with a girl who can make her feel like she hung the moon with a smile and a compliment.

The next song is slow too, so they stay close and maybe Danny slides her hand closer to the nape of Laura’s neck and maybe Laura is starting to tilt her head up when suddenly the earth rumbles beneath them and the room erupts in flames.

*

Later they’ll find out someone wore a dress that might have once been used in an actual virgin sacrifice a century ago to the day and the descendants of the original cult might have formed a frat-slash-secret-society on campus, intent on picking up where the last ritual left off, and said frat members might have set off an enormous explosion by rupturing a gas line in the hotel basement. Leaving aside the fact that Laura is hopping mad that anyone would be sacrificing women for any reason whatsoever, it absolutely ruins her dress. It’s torn, stained, charred—lucky Danny found a pitcher of ice water so quickly to douse the flames—and has a nice big tear in the skirt where a frattie plunged his ceremonial knife right before Danny hulked out and brained him with an entire table. There’s a bloodstain to match the tear since Laura added a kick to knife-happy frattie’s face for good measure and his nose spurted like a ripe grapefruit.

After the fire department got everything under control they’d hitched a ride back to campus in a Summer Society member’s jeep. Danny waves after them from the front of Laura’s dorm, then walks her inside and up the stairs. Perry and LaFontaine pounce on them as soon as they pass Perry’s room.

“We saw on the news!” says Perry, already fussing over Laura, examining her head, feeling her arms and shoulders.

“I knew those Tau Nu Beta guys were up to no good,” says LaFontaine. “No one who names their house ‘the Red Altar’ can have anything non-murdery planned.”

“Honestly with a name like that the Summer Society should have seen this coming,” Danny sighs. Her hair is more down than up at this point and her bowtie is hanging limply around her neck. 

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up,” says Laura, tapping her lightly on the forearm where her jacket sleeve got ripped away. “They were kind of also a secret society. Heavy on the secret.”

Danny just makes a humming noise and runs her hands through her hair, taking down the remnants of the bun for good.

Perry has conjured up a bottle of alcohol and some cotton swabs but Laura’s mostly fine, just a few bruises. It helps being tiny and agile, and also to be brandishing a broken off chair leg at anyone who got within a foot of her like she wasn’t afraid to use it. She gently but firmly wriggles away from Perry. “I’m fine, just really tired and really in need of a shower.”

“Of course,” says Perry, putting down the medical supplies and turning down the hotplate where she already put a kettle on for tea in her whirlwind of caretaking. She seems to want to ask more questions, but LaFontaine smoothly slides in and distracts her with a suggestion that Perry is actually out of tea which spurs Perry to exclaim over how she explicitly asked them to get more chamomile and allows Danny and Laura to slip out.

Danny follows Laura down the hall to her room, but stops at the door. “Sorry about tonight,” she says, hands in her pockets.

“Pretty sure neither of us could have predicted a homicidal secret society crashing the Equinox Ball and setting the hotel on fire,” says Laura. She unlocks her door—the room is empty, which is unsurprising since it’s the middle of the night—and looks over her shoulder at Danny who doesn’t seem to be coming. “You should come in. Get cleaned up.”

“Okay,” says Danny agreeably, as if she were waiting for the suggestion. 

Laura lets Danny use the bathroom first, taking the opportunity to look up news reports on the hotel fire and pull out a pair pajamas. The faucet turns off after about five minutes and Danny emerges in a white tank top, her shirt and ruined jacket draped neatly over her arm, suspenders hanging loose. She looks better with all the grime scrubbed off her face, cheeks a little flush from the hot water. “Thanks,” she says. 

“Any time,” says Laura, very determinedly not staring at Danny who very unfairly seems to look even better now that she’s been through a flaming riot and has taken off half her clothes. 

Danny clocks the way Laura is darting her eyes up and down. “I know you told Perry you were fine but are you really okay? It was pretty hairy in there.”

Laura looks down at the ruins of her dress, her bare feet (the shoes were the first casualty of the night and that’s _another_ thing to go on her shit list because they were nice shoes that went with a lot of outfits). “Could’ve been worse,” she says. She cracks a wry smile. “Could’ve been better.”

Danny laughs and sits down on her bed. “Definitely could’ve been better.”

“Thanks anyway. Up until everything literally exploded, I was having a nice time.” She’s smiling, and Danny’s smiling back at her, and she’s rolling closer in her desk chair until their knees bump. Laura holds her breath momentarily, caught in the tension of waiting for Danny to lean in or pull away. 

“Can we…” Danny murmurs.

She’s so, so close. “Yes?” 

“Can we…maybe pause, just for now. I’m really tired and I want to get this right,” says Danny. She slips her hand underneath Laura’s, palm up, and holds her in place. 

Laura would be nuts to say she’s not disappointed but she can feel fatigue dragging at her own body and she doesn’t want to pressure Danny into anything even though the pull between them has been driving her crazy all night. “Yeah. I get it,” she says.

Danny raises Laura’s hand to her mouth, presses her lips lightly to the back. “I mean it. I want it to be right. You deserve it.”

“So do you,” Laura says. She cringes. “I mean, for me to get it right. Not for you to—will you wait? Just a few minutes for me to not be covered in soot and then I’ll say goodnight?”

“Of course,” says Danny. She finally lets go of Laura’s hand and settles patiently on her bed while Laura dashes into the bathroom with her pajamas. Three makeup wipes and a good face rinsing later, she’s feeling much better in her flannel PJ’s. She emerges from the bathroom—to find Danny tipped over on her mattress, fast asleep with her clothes smushed under her body. Laura claps a hand over the goofy smile on her mouth without quite knowing why since there’s no one to see her. 

She crouches by Danny’s head and whispers her name, adding a little touch to Danny’s shoulder for good measure.

Danny’s eyes crack open. “Oh god, sorry,” she says, and starts struggling to push herself up. 

“You can stay,” Laura says. “Don’t try to walk back to the Summer Society house when you’re this tired.”

“You sure?” Danny asks, already lying down again.

Laura’s response is to untie Danny’s shoes and line them up neatly at the foot of her bed, then drape her clothes over the back of the desk chair. Danny rolls against the wall to make room for Laura, her feet sticking out comically over the end. Laura manages to fit herself into the double without touching Danny at first, wanting to respect boundaries, but then a long arm goes around her waist. 

“Thank you,” Danny exhales into her ear before her breathing settles almost immediately into a deep, even rhythm.

“You’re welcome,” Laura whispers back. “But next time I’m big spoon.” 

Danny’s just awake enough to hear and quirk the corner of her mouth. Laura’s mouth quirks too, and she falls asleep thinking _next time_.


End file.
